Thank you Marjorie for noticing this ominous stipulation in the proposed
UFT contract, of "psychological profiling" ("like the police"). It is a
form of repressive quackery initiated by the FBI supposedly to hunt for
"serial killers" (itself a dubious category favored by the authorities, as
it allows them to close out unsolved cases by pinning them on a single
psychopath.) It is used in court against defendants to prejudice a jury in
high-profile cases: the state's zombie behavioral psychologist is rolled
out (no offense to actual zombies) to testify that the state's prey fits
the "profile" of a perpetrator of crime x, y, and z.
Ex-law enforcement "profilers" have lately created a business around their
pseudo-science, peddling it to employers as a people-controlling tool. To
say the least, it is an outrage to treat an applicant for a teaching
position as a potential criminal. Any argument that profiling is not meant
to be "criminal" profiling in the employment context begs a number of
questions. What IS it for, then? To find the "right" person for the job?
But teaching is a profession, to which applicants must devote years of
study, gaining qualifications along the way. Profiling provides employers
with the means to ignore real qualifications in deference to a bogus test
(designed by whom? administered by whom?) that they hope will tell them,
for example, that this is a person that will support supervision in any
disagreement.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/14/psychological-profile-behavioural-psychology
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/flaw-order-science-mythology-criminal-profiling-ralph-davis/
On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 10:09 PM Marjorie Stamberg <
marjoriestamberg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Anybody see a reference to this? Ominous. This clause should not be
voted on till we know WTF is in there.
According to Chalkbeat (11 October), the contract deal announced today
that the UFT D.A. is supposed to vote on tomorrow is supposed to contain a
provision for psychological profiling for new hires, supposedly “like the
police”:
“Also new: a yet-to-be-developed screen to be used in hiring decisions.
Officials likened it to the kinds of psychological profiles, workshops, and
stress tests that police departments use to filter recruits.”
I never heard of such a thing before. Is there precedent for this? And, of
course, once they use it on new hires they could also use it to evaluate
existing teachers (particularly those without tenure). This seems pretty
ominous to me. I wonder where it comes from?
